This invention relates to a recording material capable of easily obtaining printed materials in a prescribed size and a recording method using the same.
Recently, digital color printers have been developed remarkably and can print color photos, illustrations, letters, and images in combination of those with high image quality. Electrophotographic method among those constitutes important printing means from aspects of, e.g., good flexibility of paper selection, good printing speed, and low costs of consumptive goods. In the case of electrophotographic method, however, gloss may vary on the printed sheet between a portion at which toners are added to create images and a portion at which no toner is added and no image is formed, thereby raising problems such that viewers may feel discomfort or that may receive unnatural impression from existence of xe2x80x9ca reliefxe2x80x9d at which toner images are formed thickly.
As a means for obtaining good image quality in solving those problems, an electrophotographic copier sheet has been disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (hereinafter called as xe2x80x9cJP-Axe2x80x9d) No. 4-212168 in which a resin layer having a softening temperature lower than the toner resin and a viscosity different from that of the toner resin. In JP-A-10-221877, an electrophotographic transfer sheet has been disclosed in which a polyester resin with defined molecular weight and melting inclination angle against the toner resin is formed on a support. In JP-A-3-38659, an image forming method is disclosed in which a printing is made on a paper having a transparent coating layer having defined relation of the toner resin and melting viscosity form on a support. Moreover, in JP-A-5-216322, a method for forming color images on a paper having a transparent resin layer with a defined thickness has been disclosed. Use of paper having such a resin layer on at least one side allows printing with good gloss and surface smoothness.
High quality printing paper is frequently used for printing photos, providing photos as gifts, and preserving photos in albums. Moreover, those can be sent by mail as postcards or message cards. In such a case, users are required to cut photos in a size suitable for such a purpose or use a paper in a desired side. However, cutting the paper after printing takes time, and particularly, such cutting is frequently not practical for business use. Automatic cutters are available in some places but are expensive (i.e., about 500,000 yen as the actual price of an apparatus for automatically cutting an A4 size sheet into four postcards, on April, 1999) and have limited usage because of largeness of the cutters. Conversely, if a desired size paper is used, cutting may be unnecessary, but there raise problems such that a particular size paper becomes necessary and that printing time becomes longer in comparison with printing using a larger size paper.
Papers having holes and indentations are widely used in many fields. For example, a recording medium for inkjet that can be divided easily along a perforation into two or more is disclosed in JP-A-10-166748. In JP-A-10-203056, disclosed are papers for greeting cards and notifying cards with micro-perforations in which a prescribed shape is easily cut out JP-A-5-53474 discloses an electrophotographic paper that can be folded along perforations; JP-A-10-264557 discloses a detachable, re-peelable postcard; JP-A-6-34976 discloses a copy paper with micro-perforations. In Japanese Unexamined Utility Model Publication No. 6-79576, a postcard having a flipper openable in a way of a door after cutting along a perforation where a center portion of the card body is surrounded by the perforation except one edge.
The paper generally commercially available, however, raises problems such that the paper cannot bring image quality as good as photos and that the paper may cause image disorders at the vicinity of the perforation where commercially available paper with such a perforation is used, so that satisfactory image quality cannot be obtained even where a photographic paper with a coated resin layer is used. For example, the art in JP-A-10-166748 is intended to easily obtain a printed material having a quality as good as photos, but the art is designed to use an inkjet printing and does not disclose any formation of a resin layer having a polyester as a main component nor disclose a problem that a perforation may disturb images of electrophotographic printing.
In consideration of those problems in such prior arts, it is an object of the invention to provide a recording material capable of forming printed materials in a desired size easily and rapidly. Particularly, it is an object of the invention to provide a recording material capable of taking less time, producing printed materials with a shorter time, and obtaining good images where digital image information is printed with multicolor in a desired size.
As consequences of diligent study made by the inventors, the inventors have found out a printing can be made in a desired size rapidly and easily upon formation of particular grooves on the recording material or particular holes in the recording material having a resin layer containing a polyester resin as a main component on a support and created the invention.
That is, this invention is, as a first aspect, to provide a recording material having a resin layer containing a polyester resin as a main component on a support and further having a groove or grooves continuously or intermittently extending linearly with a depth not less than 45% but not more than 90% of the thickness of the recording material.
This invention is also to provide, as a second aspect, a recording material having a resin layer containing a polyester resin as a main component on a support and further having linearly continuous holes wherein the width of the holes is not less than 15 xcexcm and not more than 130 xcexcm, the length of the holes is not less than 50 xcexcm and not more than 500 xcexcm, and the interval between the holes is not less than 30 xcexcm and not more than 300 xcexcm.
This invention is also to provide a recording method for recording material in which toners are transferred to an intermediate transfer drum from an electrophotographic photosensitive drum and subsequently transferred from the intermediate transfer drum to the recording material.